


Flightless

by KaSaPe



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Guardian Angels, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Wingfic, will update the character tags as the story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 15:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8719819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaSaPe/pseuds/KaSaPe
Summary: Lance is a guardian angel that fucked up big time. As a punishment he got a new, special job: to protect Keith Kogane, a broke college student without friends. The catch: he has to do it from earth. Oh, and apparently he has to turn Keith's miserable life into a happy one, too - all that within half a year.Keith never expected that he would find the guy that would turn his life around in a dumpster at 3am on Christmas day. The wings were kind of a surprise, too.*currently on hiatus*





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, here I am again with another multichaptered fic! :D Before you start, here's some general info:  
> 1\. the updates will be irregular. Both in time and in length, probably.  
> 2\. the chapter count will probably change a little. It should stay somewhere around 20 though!  
> 3\. I have no beta reader so feel free to point out any typos/weird phrasings
> 
> Now then, have fun! :D

* * *

  

_II. A guardian angel is not allowed to show themselves to their protégé out of their own judgement, […] no matter the circumstances._

_The only exceptions to this rule can be made by the Council of Elders [...]._

 

* * *

 

Keith shivered a little as he pulled his jacket tighter around himself and crossed his arms. It was three in the morning on Christmas day and he was just on his way home from work. As a 7/11 employee that mostly worked during the evening and early night shifts, this hour wasn’t anything unusual. He wasn’t particularly fond of it but he didn’t really have other choices: being a college student without a scholarship or parents to support him didn’t exactly make his life an easy one.

Sighing, Keith watched the frost-covered sidewalk as he put one step in front of the other. It had to be below thirty degrees now - cold as fuck - but at least it wasn’t winding this time. Or snowing. He had lost count of how many times he had almost slipped on half-frozen snow in the dark when he couldn’t see where he was going. The streetlight was barely enough to illuminate the ground before him.

“I fucking hate winters,” he whispered to himself as he crossed a street without looking. It wasn’t as if anyone else was out at this time. He rarely saw more than five people on his twenty-minute walk back to the dorms and he sure as hell didn’t expect to see anyone on this time on _Christmas day_. People had better stuff to do, they had families and friends to visit and presents to exchange. Lots of food to eat. No one was out in the cold now.

Taking a left turn at the next corner, Keith passed a few tiny shops. There were Christmas lights everywhere, even though most of them had been turned off for the night. Other people might have felt out of place in between all the motion- and lightless display windows but not Keith. He felt at ease. He had taken this path back to his tiny dorm for almost a year now, the eerie atmosphere didn’t touch him at all.

At leas that was what he had been thinking until he heard a groan coming from a small alleyway between a candy store and a secondhand shop. For a moment Keith froze in his tracks, unsure whether he should go check on the noise or just… keep walking. This didn’t concern him in any way. Whatever kind of thing there was in that alleyway could just stay there for all he cared. Not his problem. It was probably a wild animal, Keith knew these streets like the back of his hand, over there were nothing but dumpsters. 

So he kept walking.

Keith had barely managed to take five more steps when the noise repeated itself, clearer this time. To his surprise it was most definitely a human sound. A muffled groan - a  _pained_ groan. Whoever had made that noise was suffering.

Should he go check?

A little torn, he stopped walking and looked back at the alleyway he had just passed. He knew exactly what it looked like, there really was nothing but garbage. What would a person do at a dumpster at three in the morning? 

It didn’t concern him. He didn’t need to know what they were doing. It didn’t matter if the person sounded as if they were having a bad time over there. They were probably drunk or something. 

Drunk on Christmas day? Alone? In _that_ alley? Yeah, not likely.

“Why am I like this,” Keith hissed under his breath as he agitatedly turned on the spot. Couldn’t he ever leave things like this alone? Why did he have to get mixed up in stuff that didn’t concern him? And why did he get angry at himself?!

He was freezing and tired, that’s why. He didn’t want to leave a suffering person alone in the cold like this. Fuck.

Walking back towards the noise, Keith uncrossed his arms just in case he would need them to defend himself. It was unlikely but hey, he wouldn’t take any chances. No normal person would be at a dumpster at this time, right? 

Why was he doing this again? Pushing the thought aside, Keith kept going. He might not have been an entirely good person but he liked to think that he wasn't a total asshole either and there was just something about hearing a person groan in pain on _fucking Christmas day_ that set off his moral compass. Once he had reached the corner, he didn’t hesitate to step out of the street lights and enter the dark alleyway. 

“Hello? Is someone there?” Keith had barely enough time to be proud of how steady his voice sounded, when another groan followed. He blinked a few times to adjust his eyes to the darkness and kept going. There was something white between the garbage bags in the container…

“Hello?” he called again.

“Oh quiznak this is… this is just the worst,” a rough, deep voice answered him. Keith quickened his steps until he reached the dumpster, narrowing his eyes at the white thing. A feather. A feather? Maybe the darkness was affecting his vision more than expected, he couldn’t exactly think of any birds with feathers like this living around here. Then again, he didn’t know shit about birds, so there just might be some.

“Hello? Are you in there? Are you okay?” Keith asked, forgetting about the feather for now and craning his neck a little. The container was too high for him to look over but he absolutely refused to climb it. Check on a stranger? Yeah, he could do that. Climb into a dumpster for a stranger? Nope, he had his limits. 

“I think I have the worst headache in history,” the voice whined. Something shifted under the garbage bags and Keith cautiously took a step back, wary of any items that might fall down. Nothing did though and the shifting stopped again, so Keith focused his eyes back on the top of the dumpster. 

“What are you doing up there?!” he called.

“Quiznak if I know!” 

The person… didn’t know? Drunk, then? The guy had mentioned a headache, after all.

“How did you get up there?! Come down!” 

Muffled laughter was his answer, then another groan. Suddenly something dropped from the container and Keith just barely managed to sidestep it. It was one of the garbage bags. Hoping that the person could feel his contempt at almost being smothered by a bunch of trash, Keith glared at the container. 

“Well? Are you getting down here or what?”

“I’m trying, my pal, but this isn’t as easy as it seems. These bags smell like hell and the plastic keeps slippi- _ew!_ Ew, oh quiznak, what was that?!” There were more shuffling noises and something fell down on the far end of the container but Keith was undeterred. 

“You’re in a dumpster. You shouldn’t be surprised to find disgusting stuff in there,” he called half-heartedly. The longer the guy took to get out, the more the worry wore off. He was starting to feel cold now and rubbing his arms could only help so much against the winter air. Honestly, Keith didn’t understand why he even waited for the guy, there was a nice, warm dorm waiting for him just ten minutes further down the road-

“You’re an idiot if you think that I _chose_ to come here! Allura dropped me in here.” There was a muffled shout as something banged against the sides of the container and Keith hopped from one foot to the other. “This is _horrible_ , I never want to do this again. Ever. I bet I smell even worse than these bags now.”

“Sucks to be you,” Keith grumbled. He doubted that the guy had heard him but he wasn’t too concerned about that. He was much more focused on the question whether it would still be acceptable for him to leave now. The cold was creeping up his bones and he had a bed that was calling for him. A bed and a warm shower.

“This is so disgusting,” the guy kept whining. “I won’t forgive her. Ever. I’m pretty sure that my left arm is hurt too, so it wasn’t even worth the effort of not dropping me onto stone. I think I would have preferred a few broken bones to _this_.”

Oh, fuck. So the guy was hurt after all. 

“Your arm hurts?” Keith asked again. Just to be sure.

“Yep. A little. How can you tell whether it’s broken? I think it might be broken.” Keith snorted unwillingly and hid his hands beneath his armpits. He thought that his fingers might fall off at any moment.

“If it was broken you would know. Then it would really hurt.”

“I think my head is broken, then,” the guy called back drily. Keith rolled his eyes and kicked lightly against the container.

“Very funny. Now get out of there, I’m freezing my ass off and I have to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m always funny,” came the breathless response. “And I’m fine. I survived going against the rules, there is no way I wouldn’t survive falling into a bunch of smelly garbage bags. Though I gotta say that it was a close call.”

Just when Keith was about to say screw the guy and leave, an arm shot out between two bags and fumbled for something to hold on to. When the hand bumped against the container’s wall, it tightened around the rim and began to drag the person out. Keith had stopped shuffling his feet and waited for the guy to show himself.

“Okay, okay, I think I’m almost- _quiznak_ , _ouch_ , that hurt!” Keith saw the hand tighten almost imperceptibly and winced in sympathy. The guy was injured, he probably needed medical attention. What kind of person dropped someone injured into a dumpster and left them there?

Finally a head emerged from the plastic bags. It belonged to a young man, probably around Keith’s age, with messy dark hair and brown skin. That was about everything he could make out in the dark but he didn’t seem drunk at least. 

Still. Something felt distinctly wrong. Keith couldn’t quite determine what it was, the guy looked normal enough, but something was definitely off about him. 

It was three in the morning, cut him some slack. He was tired and cold. Keith let out a breath and frowned when the air didn’t even turn white anymore, he had been out here for too long already.

“Yo! Do you have a tissue or something? I’m not sure what thing I grabbed earlier was but it’s super disgusting,” the guy said and made a face. Keith rolled his eyes and patted his jacket, searching for his tissues. He was pretty sure that he had brought some, he wasn’t dumb enough to walk around during winter without any. 

Ah. There they were. Not bothering to give an answer, he opened his left pocked and took them out. He was shivering again from the change in position and he really just wanted to go home now.

“Okay, here you go. You’ll have to come down to get them though and I’d really appreciate it if you could just hurry it up a little-”

“Okay! Okay, geez, no need to get so impatient. I’m coming, this is just - this is a lot harder than it probably looks like. Seriously.” The guy winced and pulled his left arm up and Keith finally noticed what was wrong with the situation: his arm was bare. He wore a T-shirt. It was below thirty degrees and the guy wore a fucking T-shirt. 

Also, his left arm was bent at a truly awkward angle. Keith stared in horror as the guy didn’t even pay it half a mind and just flung it carelessly over the container. 

“You- _your arm-”_

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s broken,” the guy said casually. 

Keith could feel an incredulous expression taking over his face. _‘I’m pretty sure it’s broken’?_ What was wrong with that guy?! He had just- that’s not how one was supposed to act with a broken arm! Keith’s mouth opened and closed uselessly a few times before he found his voice again. “Yeah, that’s - that’s definitely broken,” he agreed weakly. The guy grimaced.

“Figures. See, Allura’s plan didn’t even work. Now I have a broken arm, an undefinable substance on my right hand _and_ smell like the personification of hell. I don’t deserve this. A punishment is a punishment but this is taking it too far,” the guy complained. Keith was speechless, he almost couldn’t keep up - how was the guy so calm about his arm? And who threw an injured person in a T-shirt into a dumpster in mid winter? What kind of punishment was that?!

Suddenly the guy made a pitiful noise and slumped against the container. “I’m stuck, my wings are caught somewhere and they hurt.” 

Keith just stared blankly. Then he huffed out a laugh, hiding his hands - with the tissues - beneath his armpits again. The guy must be disassociating or something. Probably from the shock of whatever had just happened to him.

“Did you just call your arms wings?”

The guy sent him a nasty glare. “Excuse you? I most definitely didn’t. I was talking about my _wings_. Wings wings. Majestic flight apparatus that keeps me in the sky. They are just-” he cut himself off to make another concentrated expression, then slumped against the container once more, “-stuck. And hurting.” 

“You’re high,” Keith concluded. That also explained how he didn’t seem too bothered by his broken arm or the temperature around him. Of course he was.

The guy just gave him a befuddled expression. “I am? I mean, I guess? I’m higher than you right now?”  


“No, I mean, you’re on drugs.” Keith sighed. He had wasted who knew how much time on helping a junkie out of a dumpster on Christmas day. Of course he had. This was what his life had come to.

The guy just laughed brightly. “No offense, but I’m really not interested in that. I don’t even know whether your drugs would work on me. I’m just really, genuinely stuck. Which sucks… do think you could pull me out of here?” The guys voice had gotten hopeful at the end but Keith just gave him a flat look.

“With you coming right out of a garbage disposal container? Not a chance.”

“But _Keith_ , come on, have some sympathy for the guy that just fell out of the sky,” he whined.

Keith instantly froze up.

He had called him Keith.

“How do you know my name?” he asked slowly, deliberately. The cold he was feeling now had a lot less to do with the temperature around him and a lot more to do with the guy in the dumpster. 

“Dude, you’re looking terrified right now,” the boy laughed. Keith took a few steps back, mind already racing. Was that guy a stalker? Why the fuck would he stalk _Keith_ of all people? He had absolutely nothing to offer. No money, no connections, no future. How did the guy end up in the dumpster? Did he wait for him to come home from work?

When Keith didn’t reply, the guy’s grin faded away to a tired expression. “Right, I didn’t introduce myself. Give me a moment, once I’m out of here I’ll-” He made a motion with his right hand that probably should have explained something but didn’t really clear anything up. Trying to appear casual, Keith loosened his crossed arms, his left hand going for his phone. He should probably call the police now. Something about this guy was just bad news.

Keith had just managed to pull his phone out, when the guy tapped his right hand against his left arm. The motion pulled Keith’s eyes towards it and he watched as… something happened. The left arm slowly straightened itself out, the skin shifting around and _holy fuck, the bone was moving, he could see the actual fucking bone move, this was actually happening_ \- and then the movement stopped. The guy flexed his left hand a few times and let out a happy noise.

Both the tissues and his phone slipped straight from his hands.

Keith had just witnessed a broken arm healing itself in two seconds flat.

“You should probably pick that up again. Did you break it? I remember that phones are rather expensive,” the guy spoke, nodding towards his phone. A mild feeling of panic rose to Keith’s throat but he suppressed it. Now was not the time. Whatever had just happened, he had to stay calm. There was probably a rational explanation for this. Probably.

Right. Just like there was probably a rational explanation for how the guy knew his name.

And how the guy thought he had wings.

Holy shit. There was no way- there was just no way that- “You have wings?” Keith asked in a strangled voice. He was pretty sure it cracked, too. Just great. The guy gave him a look that told him exactly what he thought of that question.

“They are stuck. And they _hurt_. Well, duh, the council had to shrink them so that I couldn’t go back home again for the duration of my punishment, of course they would hurt. But yes, genius, I have wings. As I told you just a few moments ago.”

“You- go back home?!”

The guy ignored his alarmed words, finally using both of his arms to push himself up. Behind him, two startling white wings suddenly shot out of the garbage bags, wings that reminded Keith of the feather he had seen earlier. They were barely wider than his outstretched arms would be but they were- they were  _wings_ and wings didn’t belong on people - oh god. This was just so  _wrong_. 

Keith instinctively took a step backwards and cursed when he slipped, his reflexes not being enough to stop his ass from meeting cold stone. He was trembling when he looked back up again but at this point he honestly didn’t know anymore whether it was still because of the temperature or from pure shock. Both seemed equally as likely.

Above him, the guy grinned down from the container, his wings now flapping as he jumped to the ground.

“Hey there, mullet man. My name is Lance and I’ll be your new guardian angel for half a year, starting today. Nice to officially meet you, Keith.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, it means a lot!^^ 
> 
> You'll most likely be able to follow the progress of the new chapters on [tumblr (keiths-stupid-mullet)](http://keiths-stupid-mullet.tumblr.com/) since I'm always screaming about something there. Feel free to drop me a message as well, I'm always looking for klance friends :P


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